Heretofore in article case packers, efforts have been made to provide controls for the feed of streams of abutted articles to the filling head, and protection or checker devices have been provided heretofore to determine when the filling head or grid on a case packer is properly filled with articles for case packer action.
One prior patent in this field is U.S. Pat. No. 3,421,285 that shows a plurality of stop members for stopping the flow of individual abutted rows of articles along the fitting head as the individual rows thereof are fully occupied with articles. The foremost article in each row contacts and changes the position of a pivotal flag provided in association with the stop. This pivotal movement of the flag opens or clears a laterally extending hole formed in the stop member and flag assembly to permit a wave form control beam, such as a sonic or light beam, to be transmitted through the holes in the stop members and flags to permit it to pass across the width of the filling head when all of the flags are moved to a cleared position. Then the beam can be used for a circuit control function to provide a desired operation in the case packer, such as dropping the group of articles on the filling head into a carrier case.
Typical article caser apparatus such as can be used with the apparatus of the invention or in which such apparatus would be used is shown in prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,052,071.
The previous apparatus, even though it functions quite satisfactorily for some time, does sometimes involve focus problems in the projecting of a light beam across the filling head for the desired control action. Furthermore, some alignment and maintenance problems have been incurred in the past because of vibration of the filling head and somewhat short electric light bulb life has occurred when the light generator and the light receiver are both mounted on the filling head as is customary in the present practice in this art.
It is therefore the general object of the present apparatus to provide a new and improved detection device for use with a case packer filling head and to provide a predetermined control function when the case packer filling head is properly filled with articles for packaging action.
Another object of the invention is to provide a sturdy, substantially maintenance free, electrical control circuit for use with case packer filling heads and article detection devices thereon for controlling the handling of articles on the filling head.
Another object of the invention is to provide a relatively uncomplicated electrical and mechanical article detection device for a case packer filling head to indicate when the head is full of articles; and to provide apparatus of the type described that can be relatively easily mounted on existing apparatus to replace wave form beam control apparatus as provided heretofore in this art.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be made more apparent as the specification proceeds.